My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Gardening and Horticulture—quite a mouthful. I shall refer to it only as a “group” in future. When I first took on the role, some years ago, I do not think that I appreciated the whole role of horticulture. I knew about the craft of gardening and production of plants; what I had not appreciated was that it embraced cell science, inquiry into new plants and how they might be developed, particularly those able to deal with climate change, arboriculture, dealing with amenity trees—quite distinct from forestry—landscaping and gardening design, and so forth.
This came to the fore in 2019 when an independent group, the Oxford Economics group, brought forward an interesting report which gave a very good indication of the scope of horticulture in 2019. I am not very good with figures, so I shall read them very carefully. In 2019, horticulture contributed £28.8 billion to gross domestic product and jobs numbered 674,000. Much more interesting was the scope for development that the report saw, provided that the Government and the horticultural industry co-operated. It reckoned that, by 2030, GDP could be £41.8 billion and there could be 763,000 jobs. If the watchword of the new Government is “growth, growth and growth”, I give them horticulture, on a plate, as a wonderful way of increasing growth to everybody’s benefit.
There are a number of worries in the horticultural world at the moment. One is that employers feel held back by a shortage of skilled workers. That includes not just the lower skills but many of the higher skills that are well paid. We certainly need to address this. I believe that, for young recruits, a lot of the problem lies with schools and careers services, which seem to me woefully inadequate in their knowledge of what opportunities there are for young people. Indeed, it is worse: sometimes I fear that they give a clear indication that they think gardening is only for those who are idiots and cannot do anything more. I put that bluntly, but I believe it to be the truth.
What they do not seem to understand is that a variety of qualifications lead up to degrees in horticulture. Recently, I went to the land-based Plumpton College in East Sussex, where there are a variety of qualifications at different levels, the last one being a degree, and every single person there, the principal assured me, would have a job at the end of the course. Clearly, there is scope for young people. There is another stream, of course, for those who are career changers, who perhaps need slightly different qualifications, but there is not enough time now to deal with that aspect.
To look at it in more general terms, I think it could be very helpful if the Government recognised certain facts which seem to me perfectly obvious but do not always seem so in government circles. First, all jobs in horticulture are by their nature green jobs—and we are supposed to attach great importance to that. Secondly, we need to ensure that the Office for National Statistics, which at this moment is consulting on the definition and classification of green jobs, includes horticulture in its calculations. Thirdly, the Government need to recognise that in the great 25-year environment plan, with its various goals, horticulture contributes to at least half of them, so it has a very important role to play.